5 Answers
5

Compared to OpenOffice.org 3.3,
LibreOffice 3.3 has some unique
features, including [15]:

SVG image import

Lotus Word Pro and MS Works import filters

Improved WordPerfect import

Dialog box for title pages

Navigator lets you unfold one heading as usual in a tree view

"Experimental" mode that allows users to test out unfinished features

Certain bundled extensions (including Presenter View in Impress)

Color-coded document icons

Version numbers are the same as OpenOffice (for now) because it is a fork. The differences are relatively minor at the moment, though the featureset could of course diverge. It's a pretty safe bet that as long as OpenOffice remains free and open source (as in: Oracle doesn't kill it off), enhancements from that will continue to be merged into LibreOffice.

Thank you for the answer. IMO you should switch to LibreOffice. Oracle tried to acts like a business company, with absolutely no mankind (which is the heart of "free" and "open" source), that's why all the best OpenOffice developpers went away to develop for "free", "open"source, LibreOffice). That's why the next Ubuntu version will include LibreOffice, not OpenOffice. If you want long term support, go for LibreOffice !
–
Olivier PonsAug 6 '11 at 6:54

Crunchbang Linux went to LibreOffice, and I went with it. Definitely recommend it.
–
RobJan 23 '12 at 20:36

@OlivierPons OpenOffice is now hosted by Apache so likely there is plenty of long-term support.
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ChloeJun 24 '13 at 20:55

When SUN was acquired by Oracle, the open source community was afraid that Oracle kills SUN's open source software, which included OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris, MySQL, etc.
While some of these fears turned to reality (with Oracle dumping OpenSolaris), the database giant plans for OpenOffice.org were not so clear and the office suite future seemed in danger.

Some OpenOffice.org developers forked OpenOffice and created LibreOffice. They created a foundation: The Document Foundation and changed the BSD licence (which meant you could develop and commercialize OpenOffice.org the way IBM used to do with Lotus Syphony) to our well loved GPL :)

The foundation quickly raised funds and started by cleaning the code base. From a user perspective, no major UI changes so far. However, for developers the current focus on code cleanup is very important and will increase the number of contributors.
Meanwhile, after failing to monetize it, Oracle donated OpenOffice to the Apache foundation (hey IBM ;) )

well, now that Oracle has donated OpenOffice.org to the Apache foundation, LibreOffice can reuse code from the OpenOffice project.
–
lisa17Aug 18 '11 at 16:49

P.S: IBM donated its Lotus Symphony to the Apache Foundation as well
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lisa17Aug 18 '11 at 16:51

From what I've read, it looks like The Document Foundation can merge OpenOffice code into LibreOffice, but going vice versa may prove far more difficult because of weird copyright issues.
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surfasbAug 18 '11 at 23:16

One more thing - is that in LO You have a much greater option of keys to bind commands to. That is You can bind some functionality to Ctrl-a, Ctrl-Shift-a, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-a - while in OO You don't have Ctrl-Alt, Ctrl-Alt-Shift option. At least it was this way a month ago.

Another thing - LO works way faster then OO. For example it starts MUCH faster.